Magnolia Bistrot & Winebar — Restaurant in Lisbon

The Praça das Flores has been one of my favourite places in Lisbon since I discovered it years ago. Calm atmosphere, trees and other greens soothing the eyes, benches to sit on to relax and surrounded by some nice restaurants. The "Magnolia" is some sort of a very good fit at this place. Since it is sitting at one of the corners of the area, one can't really miss it. Somewhere I read there would be served Orange Wine. No clue what this was about at all. So, I went there the other day to find out. Actually, they had three different sorts to offer. The stuff was really helpful and told me something about all of them. But, of course, you can't get it when it comes to eating and drinking without tasting. I decided to start with the Portuguese one they had to offer and I liked it a lot. Of course, I am not that much of a wine guy. I have a rather simple or even unsophisticated taste when it comes to this. There are some preferences for each colour, mostly related to region of origin. But that's pretty much it. The Orange Wine, or also Amber Wine, was different from everything I tasted before. Some sort of a rich texture, a full body. With the second visit I went for another sort, actually, the recommendation of the staff, and I wasn't disappointed either. Served cooled very well it ran smoothly across the tongue and was a welcomed refresher on a hot summer day. The Magnolia is a great place to hang out. It is always well visited, both at the outside area as well as with the inside places. If one wants to be sure to get a table at a preferable time, there should be certainly booked one upfront. Looking around inside to the arrangements of the interior and how lovely the room is quipped, is easy to the eye. Well done. Best of all − the staff. Always available, always attentive and helpful, nice, friendly, very welcoming. As of now, I didn't have any of the dishes they offer. But alone from the pictures and the descriptions I have seen so far, I dare to guess it will be great as well. At some day in the future I will tryit out, I am pretty sure. This place is a clear...

Went there on monday afternoon to have a proper lunch (or, at least, tried to do so). I was already aware that this place is all about small plates/kind of tapas...but what we didn't expect is to find such a overpriced place, with a truly awful value for money and bad service.

The first red flag we noticed was that most of the people over there were english speakers with an US accent, not locals.

Secondly, I asked for a fizzy drink because I'm on a strong medication due to health issues...and the answer I got is that "we don't have fizzy drinks", so I had to stick to tap water and paying 3 euros for it. On top of that, the glass of white wine of my partner was 6 euros. Great stuff, saying that those prices are ridiculously overpriced is an understatement.

On the other hand, I ordered a kind of fish burger? and my partner lamb meatballs. As it is such a bistrot/winebar/small plates/whatever pretentious name you want to call it, at least you would expect those 2 plates to come at the same time, specially if you're paying alltogether 27 EUROS FOR 2 TINY PLATES OF FOOD, a burger on its own and 3 meatballs, it's not rocket science I think. What happened actually is that my burguer came first (the burger was on its own, obviously, maybe adding some fries on the side was too much of a luxury??), and it took like 20 MINUTES FTER THAT for the meatballs to arrive. They even apologised without us saying a word, so you can guess how shitty they even know this place is.

In the end we just left starving, with 36 euros less in my pocket and so disappointed about how dumb we were (or maybe we just were too hungry??) to fall for a place like this, obviously a tourist/foreigners trap and properly conceived to look enough cute in Instagram so that you're not aware of how awfully overpriced it is till you get the bill. So to put it shortly, STAY AWAY...

okay a little story: I was on holiday with my family for four days in Lisbon, we were all pretty tired. this was the restaurant I picked out for our last night after hearing great things from 'online people' - so, on our final night, we walked down from our hotel to here

we arrived a little early (about 10 mins) - it was cute to see my name written on the window with the time I'd be coming and the tables we'd have. given our table wasn't ready yet, they sat us at a table around the corner with some blankets to keep us warm and the drinks menu :)

when we came back inside for our table, we ordered about 8 items from the menu (we were four people and we thought this was a good amount to have, although looking back I might have done 9 or 10) - everything was well presented and tasted excellent. I particularly liked the burrata with foccacia and the lobster roll :D the interior was lovely as well and felt very comfortable and still very fashion in the right way

we also got the pistachio tiramisu, the chocolate torte and the crumble for desert between all of us and I can definitely recommend all of them. we had plenty of wine and drinks as well.

I also have to mention that the servers were lovely and personable and we felt that they made our experience even better :)

my parents later said that was one of the best meals they'd ever had and I'm glad I brought...